The present invention relates to distribution and more particularly, in one embodiment, to a content distribution architecture.
Increasingly, consumers are relying on the Internet to obtain audio and video content. Users are downloading songs, listening to Internet radio services, and watching video services from Internet sources. The co-filed application entitled “Personalized Episodic Download Media Service” (not admitted prior art) discloses schemes for providing personalized radio services and other media services over the Internet. Also, it is envisioned that television and movie watching will be replaced by video-on-demand services over the Internet.
Audio and video materials require a relatively large amount of data to support a given duration of listening or viewing. The traditional approach to distributing this data to users is storing it on a server. Client computers then retrieve the content from the server as desired using Internet protocols. Unfortunately, providing high speed access to a large volume of data on a server carries a cost. This cost increases with the number of users to be accommodated and the amount of data they retrieve.
To address problems with the scalability of this client-server model, so-called peer-to-peer networks have been developed for content distribution. In a peer-to-peer network, users obtain content from the computers of other users rather than from a central server. Peer-to-peer networks thus exploit otherwise fallow storage and processing resources and are capable of distributing media content at far lower cost.
Current peer-to-peer networks, however, suffer from several serious shortcomings. Content delivery on these networks is “best effort” without any guarantee of delivery of desired content or even the availability of any particular content. Also, these networks have been developed in the context of applications where most network peers are passive at any one time and there is a relatively small number of requesting peers compared to the overall total. These peer-to-peer architectures cannot accommodate emerging applications that require guaranteed delivery of a very large amount of content in a limited time interval regardless of how many peers have the content and whether these peers are available.
Also, previous peer-to-peer networks do not properly authenticate peers or the content that they store. The user has no guarantee that the delivered content is in fact what was requested. Misrepresented or corrupted content may easily be placed into the network either deliberately or unintentionally.
Content users are also confronted with difficulties in finding desired content. There is no centralized catalog. The user typically can only search for desired content by name with no guarantee of a successful search. Rights management is yet another area of concern. Previous peer-to-peer content distribution networks have relied on user-provided content without any verification of rights to that content or protection against further unauthorized copying. Yet to obtain the cooperation of content providers and rights holders in making content available, such protection is necessary.
The above-mentioned co-filed application presents an application for which current content distribution methods are unsuited. A very large amount of media content is to be distributed to client computers to support a paid personalized radio service. Users of a paid service will not tolerate loss of service due to corrupted content, unavailable content, late delivery of time sensitive content, etc. Rights owners will not provide their content to such a service unless further distribution can be restricted.
What are needed are systems and methods for content distribution that address these concerns.